Valerie Shockley | |
---|---|
Name | Valerie Shockley |
Gender | Female |
Age | 21 |
Introduced In | "Insert Inaccurate Historical Reference Here" |
Valerie Shockley is an agent of of the Anti-Cliché and Mary-Sue Elimination Society.
Description[]
- "We're either in for a hell of a lot more fun... or we're all going to die." -Valerie
Valerie is a Team Leader, and the first Agent to join the Society after its original three Leaders.
Appearance[]
Valerie is fairly tall, approaching 5'8", and is quite heavy for her age, though her weight does not seem to detract from her ability to run around and keep up with the other Agents. Her hair is straight, brown, and very long, almost reaching past her waist. Her eyes are a curious shade of gold-hazel, and she usually wears purple wire-framed glasses. In terms of clothing, she wears tops of varying colors and designs, preferably long-sleeved, though short-sleeved is also acceptable (almost never tank-tops), and is never caught without jeans or jean-shorts. Shoes vary between sneakers or riding boots, either dark blue or black.
With a 1988 birthday, she is also one of the oldest members of the Society.
Personality[]
It's easy to miss Valerie as she wanders about the Library looking for new things to read. Despite her size, she has the art of being unnoticeable down to a science. Most of the time she finds it difficult to speak to people she's not very familiar with, but her shyness tends to vanish when she's under pressure. Lately she spends most of her time either in the Emergency Ward, at the archery range, or in her room, reading.
Valerie is very intelligent. Though she wouldn't label herself as a genius, she does have an exceptional memory, and it's not too difficult for her to figure most things out, given time and stubbornness on her part, as she is very good at taking facts and putting them together to form a whole picture. Even Aster's manga classes aren't too difficult for Valerie, though she will admit to boredom after about two hours. She is also very philosophically minded - conversations about hotly debated topics such as religion or politics are a favorite pastime for Valerie. Because she can easily see things from others' points of view and fully understand their position, debates with Valerie usually stay very friendly and enjoyable. However, she knows what she believes in, and will argue the point until she is satisfied that it has gotten across.
She is a fiercely loyal friend, compassionate and trusting to a fault - although recently she's been forced to discard some of that naivete. Her shyness and lack of confidence vanish without a trace when faced with an emergency, or when she's defending a friend or standing up for what she believes in. She does her best not to judge anyone and is very impartial, but she also forgives much too easily. Valerie is a pacifist by nature and greatly dislikes violence, though she does appreciate martial arts for the skill they require (she enjoys watching people during weapons practice). Anger from others bothers her much more than it should (see 'empathy'), but she will fight back if she believes in what she's fighting for.
Valerie is extremely close to Tash, Adrian, Emily, and all the members of her team, and is good friends with several other members such as Michael. She is also often accompanied on missions or around the Library by her muse and guardian spirit, Ari, who most often takes the form of a small queen Pernese fire-lizard.
History[]
Valerie joined the Society because it seemed fun, and fun times were indeed had. Her first mission with her team wasn't until several weeks after she joined, taking place in the Inuyasha fandom against Willowe Foxblade. Following that was a disappointingly brief visit to the Sailor Moon fandom, and a short but fun trip into Pirates of the Carribean, both also against Willowe. After those missions, Valerie took up a more administrative position in the Society as opposed to being active in the field.
After Adrian was injured in the Fate/Stay Night fandom, Valerie revealed her abilities as an empathic healer to the Society, and was henceforth given the position of resident healer, medic, and therapist. She now has her own office in addition to her regular quarters, and runs the Med Ward with the assistance of Phoenixia, Miriku, and Aimee.
When Adrian died during Willowe's invasion of the Library Arcanium, Valerie suppressed her grief both because it was too much for her to accept and because she could still empathically sense Adrian's presence very near to her. It turned out that this was because Adrian's soul was still inside the Library, albeit broken into five pieces, and embodied into specific members of the Society, one of which was indeed Valerie. With the assistance of the Counter Guardian Kuroneko, Valerie was able to locate Adrian's missing body and all five pieces of his soul, and fuse them all back together, bringing Adrian back to life.
Currently, Valerie is the only member of the Society who knows of the existance of Zero, a Gary-Stu replica of Adrian who also possessed a piece of Adrian's soul.
Unique Abilities and Items[]
- "I mean, I hate fighting. Unless my shields are completely airtight, which they rarely are since it restricts my powers so much, I can't fight. Harming someone else is like deliberately hurting myself, and what sane person does that?" -Valerie
Valerie is one of two known Empaths in the Library (the other one being her teammate Stacey), and so far remains the only Healer in the Society's ranks. She is also a competent duelist, a decent (and getting better all the time) archer, and has been known to sing to herself when she thinks no one can hear.
Empathy[]
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary defines empathy as "the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner". In lay terms, being an empath means being able to feel what another person is feeling, either emotionally, physically, or both. Advanced empaths also sometimes have the ability to ‘draw out’ physical or emotional pain from another person and take it into their own body, with the intention of then releasing or expelling that pain and curing the subject.
Empathy generally comes in two types, the first being much more common than the second. First is receptive empathy, which takes in the emotions of others, as just described. The second type is projective empathy, which works in the opposite manner - instead of recieving others' emotions, the empath projects her emotions onto those around her. Used properly, projective empathy can be a powerful weapon, but Valerie's abilities are mainly receptive.
Feeling the emotions and physical pain or pleasure of those she encounters is both a strength and a weakness for Valerie. Coupled with her intelligence, empathy allows her to predict her opponent's movements and thoughts with relative ease. However, this ability does her no good as, coupled with her natural pacifism and compassion, empathy renders her unable to do harm to another if she can help it. There have been occassions in which Valerie has gotten angry enough to hit someone, but aiming to do serious harm is next to impossible for her.
Valerie is naturally drawn to those in emotional need because of this ability, and people in emotional need are just as drawn to her, intuitively sensing that she can help them. Most of her closest friends have resulted from her helping someone with their emotional problems.
Healing[]
The gift of Healing is self-explanatory, though Valerie's gift is far from perfect. True Healing requires intense concentration, which Valerie often lacks outside of deep meditation. However, she is able to prevent infection in wounds and stop excess swelling and/or bruising, and she can also make sure bones don't heal improperly. Usually what she does is send in some of her own energy to speed up the body's natural healing process, while making sure things don't go wrong as she does so. She can also cure headaches, ringing ears, and hiccups, but only in herself for some reason.
When pressured or distressed, Valerie's healing gift can grow to near miraculous proportions, but that has only happened once so far, and she is unwilling to talk about the circumstances around that incident.
Archery[]
Because of their distance from the opponent, archery and knife-throwing are the closest Valerie is able to come to real fighting. However, after several accidents and one near-miss involving Adrian's kitty ears, she decided to stick primarily to archery and only use bladed weapons in an emergency. Her aim with arrows has proven to be much better than her aim with knives, and she can usually hit a target from fifty feet or more.
Though she has trouble actually seeing energy (unlike her teammate Danielle), Valerie has been experimenting with infusing her arrows with ki to make them more powerful. Results thus far have been mixed, ranging from completely ineffective to devestatingly explosive. How the archery range keeps getting rebuilt overnight she has no idea, although the general concensus is that the magic of the Library is responsible.
Seiryu is a weapon given to Valerie by Adrian. Normally it is a pale blue bracer with a few runes stamped into the leather, but if its wielder is an empath, the excess energy running through said empath gets diverted into the bracer. The energy then expands outward from the bracer into the shape of a bow, which the empath can use to fire energy arrows. Because the bow makes use of the empathic energies running through Valerie, it makes her less sensitive to battle and more or less able to fight.
Bardic Gift[]
Valerie's voice ranges from a throaty alto to a high, glass-shattering soprano, and carries with it a hint of what is called Bardic Gift. Bardic Gift is very similar to empathy in that it deals with the emotions of the listener, except it works through singing. (It works through any form of music, actually, but singing is the only form Valerie has any talent at.) It's also much subtler than empathy, and is virtually undetectable except by an empath or another bard. However, because of the Sueish stigma a pretty voice carries, Valerie tends to sing only to herself, and has never used this ability except to practice within the confines of her room.
Deck Strategy[]
Valerie doesn't duel often, but she does keep her deck on her person. It is mainly centered around Crystal Beast monsters, with a few Warriors and Dragons as backup. She uses a strategy that focuses on defense as opposed to offense, and enjoys burning her opponent's Life Points away. Her signature (though not often used) monster is Prime Material Dragon, selected both because of its physical resemblance to Ari and because its effects are reminicent of Valerie's abilities and personality. However, she does harbor an intense dislike of synchro monsters and synchro strategies. She claims that this dislike arose from her general dislike of the spinoff show they came from, and because they are severely broken as far as cards go.
Team[]
Valerie heads a team of four other agents, each of which brings a different ability or skill to the table. The group was first introduced in the mission to the Inuyasha fandom as a secondary team of agents that was formed out of necessity when the original group proved, uh... ineffective at capturing Sues in fandoms mainly populated by bishis. Sadly, Valerie's team didn't prove themselves to be above this temptation either, but with the influx of Sueishness plaguing the fandoms and all the new agents rolling in to counter it, all five team members (even Terrie) have stepped up to the plate and taken on greater responsibilities as senior members and role models for rookies.
- Monika is Valerie's best friend from early childhood, and likely the one everyone on their team would look to as second-in-command. Though far too modest for her own good, she does have impressive leadership skills, and does her utmost to include everyone in whatever is going on. Her demeanor can swing from bouncing to sullen in seconds, but she usually sticks to the former. In her bouncy mood she is extremely random and amuse herself with the simplest of things. When she's sullen it's really best to leave her alone, because she refuses to burden others with her problems. Where Valerie can see all sides of any given conflict, Monika's definition of right and wrong are rigid and defined. She is the best judge of character of the group, and is also a very hard worker who is used to having to fight for what she wants.
- Danielle, despite being almost four years younger than Valerie and the youngest of the group, is the one person that might match Valerie in terms of IQ. Her personality is as firey as her hair - quick to anger and slow to forgive. She is the one most likely to make a sarcastic comment or let loose a snappy retort. She's also very good at learning things completely on the fly - where Valerie plans things out ahead of time, she's the one you look to for snap decisions. She knows how to fight (preferably with a staff, though it doesn't really matter) and will not hesitate to beat someone up or ream someone out if she feels they deserve it. In addition to English, she speaks near-fluent Japanese, a good deal of Latin, and some French. Her muses live inside her head, a pair of outcast aristocrats named Viktor and Eva (married).
- Stacey is by far the easiest person to get along with. In the world. She is bright and friendly and bouncy and should not be allowed near sugar. Like Valerie, she is very empathetic and is always ready with a hug (sometimes whether you want one or not). Like Monika, she's another who keeps her own emotions and personal wants bottled up inside her, but where Monika regularly implodes under the pressure, Stacey explodes. Woe be to anyone within a 50-mile radius when that happens. Stacey also has an alter ego named Ezra, who is very like Danielle in personality. An expert in unarmed combat, Ezra has a very I-don't-take-shit attitude and isn't above fighting dirty if it's for a good cause. Ezra can use Stacey's body just like a yami can.
- Terrie and Danielle (along with Ezra) are the primary "fighters" of the team. Terrie may not be very fast, but she is experienced and does know what she's doing with a weapon in her hand. She not the easiest of people to get along with, as she's a little bit self-centered and takes offense to things very easily, but she also has a bright and cheerful personality and makes friends very easily. Often she doesn't seem to realize that she's overweight, because she is not above flirtation to get what she wants. Her emotions swing easily from one spectrum to the next, and sometimes it's difficult to make her see sense if she's angry or upset. However, she trusts in Valerie's judgement in most matters, so she'll (grudgingly) go along with the concensus if Valerie asks her to.
Trivia[]
- Valerie is studying to be a psychologist at Rutgers University.
- Valerie has a mental disorder called Tourette's Syndrome, which isn't really noticable unless you remind her of it. Most of the symptoms don't show, except for a need for symmetry in her body (she hates walking on different colored tiles) and a neck-stretching tic.
- Valerie's left elbow has a long, curved surgical scar over it from breaking her arm in a stupid and rather comical incident involving a desk chair and a stray wire when she was 19.
- Valerie's IQ is 139.
- One of Valerie's earliest memories is teaching herself to read Gertrude McFuzz at the age of 3.
- Valerie is an exceedingly picky eater. Pizza, burgers, and soda are all out of the question, much to the horror of her friends.
- Valerie does not and will not ever consume any sort of alcohol. Or smoke. Yeah.
- Valerie has a particular weakness for Reeces Cups.
- Valerie has loved horses, dolphins, and dragons for as long as she can remember, which is probably why Ari generally takes the form of one of these.
- Valerie has been taking horseback riding lessons since she was ten, and will smack anyone who says that riding isn't excercise.
- Valerie's theme song is "She's Every Woman", by Garth Brooks.
Agents of the ACMSES | |
---|---|
Leaders | Harriet • Michael • Tash |
Department Heads | Adrian • Charis • Dave • Valerie Shockley |
Current Agents | Aimee • Akai Minami • Alice Wood • Aster Selene • Avak • Ben • Chloe • Claire Upward • Cristoph Asahina • Crystellia 'Chrys' • Danielle • Drake Dragonsoul • Gareth • Inara • Ingrid Nunn • James 'Jamie' Coulthard • Jared • Jess • Joe • John • Karissa • Kyle Griswold • Lily Adamson • Louise • Marcus Pate • Miriku Wasson • Mizuho • Monika • Ossa • Pete • Red • Rhiannon 'Rhia' • Robert • Stacey/Ezra • Stephen • Theresa 'Terrie' Bridges • Tom • Tyler Kahn • Willie |
Retired Agents | Beth • Blake • Camille • Douglas Kreig • Doyle • Emma • Kate • Lauren • Ria • Sumire |
Non-Agents | Emily Smith • Phoenixia |